Chapter Text
The sky was still dark when Fukase woke up. Time felt like something sticky, palpable and unpleasant; it felt like he hadn't fallen asleep at all, he had just blacked out. He ran his right hand—the only one with fully working nerves—across the grooves of the burn scars that lightly decorated one side of his waist. He rolled over on his side, feeling the warped flesh latch on to the sweat-stained sheets below him as he moved.
Eugh.
He grimaced, unsticking himself from the mattress and groggily reaching for his phone. The bright LED screen stained his eyes with a harsh afterimage.
After squinting through his temporary blindness and seeing the screen read 5:02, Fukase groaned, deciding it would be both pointless and impossible to try to go back to bed. His bathrobe slid off the hook as he haphazardly reached for it with one hand and opened the balcony door with the other. As the morning air hit him, he tightened the robe around his waist and looked down to the quiet city sprawled underneath him. Everything around him was completely still. For Fukase, time had stopped.
He took a shaky breath, leaning on the cool metal of the railing. Daybreak had just started to creep up on the coastline, casting a cold, pale blue shadow over the rest of the city. A sense of uselessness overcame him as he looked down to the streets below. In the absence of any real substantial thought, Fukase felt a dangerous cocktail of apathy and anxiety, filling himself with the worst possible mental fodder. He had connections to everybody, but no one had come to see him in the hospital. He was always well-liked, even somewhat of a celebrity, but he never made any friends. Fukase was cryptic—something indecipherable, not something to be read. It didn't matter what his social standing was; no matter what, he was isolated. The clear air of early morning quickly went from refreshing to painful, scraping at the inside of his lungs.
As long as I'm still breathing, he thought, it's fine.
He took a much deeper breath as he stepped back inside, the sliding door clicking behind him. He felt himself going through the motions of his morning routine again (and without much reservation). His body was fed up with being grimy, it seemed, as a zombified Fukase dragged himself into the bathroom and turned the shower faucet on.
It felt more like a mental intermission (or maybe possession) than a real shower, but he emerged from the bathroom shaking the water off his hair like a dog. As he looked at the still-packaged bandages on his nightstand, he felt one sense of dread be replaced with another. It was going to be a very, very long morning, and he was far from being able to do it by himself. Fukase picked up the roll of gauze and walked down the hall to the kitchen to find his older brother making pancakes like he had done for him every morning beforehand.
"Help," he mumbled, placing it on the table, "please." Fukase didn't like asking for help in general, but he especially hated asking Akira.
Akira nodded, hastily turning the griddle off. He was just glad Fukase was speaking to him. "Take a seat."
As he sat down and slid the bathrobe off his torso, it became increasingly difficult to hide how awful he was feeling. Fukase was trying to keep his composure up just so he could avoid any mental prodding from his older brother, but he couldn't help how limp his body language was. They exchanged equally awkward expressions as Akira lifted up the dead weight that was Fukase's arm. He opened his mouth to say something, but Fukase's glare told him it was best to leave it alone. There was a long, quiet pause before Akira began to unwrap the gauze.
"Fukase..." Akira began, just as Fukase assumed he would, no matter how discouraging he tried to look. "You don't have to go back to school today if you aren't ready, there's no obli—"
"No," he interjected, with more force than there was volume, "I want to go to school."
Akira nodded. Fukase didn't usually speak in full sentences—he had always been quiet in general, but ever since he stepped foot in the hospital, he had been virtually mute. It was true that he'd speak more to Akira than anyone else, but even then, it was never more than two words at a time. Akira didn't push any further. It was up to Fukase, and Fukase was stubborn, especially when it came to something Akira said. If Fukase made the decision to go, he was going to go. "Uh," he cleared his throat, taping off the bandaging around Fukase's clammy hands, "I'm proud of you."
Fukase looked a little uncomfortable. His brother hadn't said anything wrong—they were both equally bad at handling affection. The only response he could muster was to cooperate with him as Akira finished up checking the tightness of the binds. Since Fukase was always short on words, this was how the two communicated: indirectly, but always understood.
His older brother closely examined his handiwork before he letting it go limp, allowing Fukase to twist and flex his now-bandaged arm. There was hesitation in Fukase's eyes. He wasn't sure how to feel, even if his older brother had done well.
"Do you want to look in the mirror? I did a pretty good job. I think you look cool, really."
Fukase sighed. He wasn't exactly thrilled to look in the mirror on any occasion; he was still adjusting to seeing himself with the burns.
"Fukase, please." Akira pleaded, gently placing a hand on his shoulder. His expression softened as he felt Fukase's posture stiffen. "You have to see yourself before you go to school. I don't want you to look in the mirror by yourself later and realize I did an awful job. It's best to get it over with and see how bad I did while I'm still in whacking distance."
The joke fell on deaf ears. He understood what Akira's intentions were, but Fukase's expression went unchanged. It had been the recommendation of the in-house therapist to avoid mirrors until he was comfortable enough to come to terms with what he would see. "Comfort" wasn't really what he was feeling, but just like anything else in his life right now, he didn't want to deal with it alone. Reluctantly, he nodded.
Akira dragged him to the bathroom, still holding the freshly bandaged arm. "What do you think? Do they feel okay?"
His older brother's grip loosened as Fukase began to inspect his arm more closely than before. The burns were well-hidden underneath Akira's heartfully crafted wrappings. You couldn't find a smile on his lips, but you could see it in his eyes. Any sense of relief quickly left his expression as Fukase's gaze went from his arm to his face. It was mostly normal—but the top left corner of his face was blotchy, almost warping his eyelids shut. Fukase put some force in the right side of his face, trying to open his eyelid wider to examine the damage. His eye looked like his iris had been completely removed, leaving a milky, watered-down shell in its place. He was used to only being able to see out of one eye, but he still wasn't used to seeing it in the mirror.
"... do you want me to get one of those square bandages to put over your eye for now? Just until you're ready to see it. And it's still not fully healed, too..." That much was true—the doctors said because of the severity of the burns, the skin on his face was still evening out. It wasn't going to be normal, but it was going to be more white than red, and for that, Fukase was grateful.
"Please."
Akira silently opened the medicine cabinet behind the mirror. Fukase was glad to get a break from sulking over his appearance. "I should get you the patterned bandages with Hello Kitty on them or something." Akira smiled, fiddling with the package before pulling out a single square band-aid. "What's the little devil Sanrio cat you like? Kuromi?"
Fukase squinted as his older brother lightly pressed on the bandage. Akira was right, he thought, looking in the mirror, the bandages do look kind of cool. For his brother's sake, Fukase feigned a smile like he was posing for picture day before promptly dropping it in favor of his normal (and in his opinion, very cool, especially considering the bandages) brooding self. There was a pause between the two of them. Their eyes met in the mirror. Neither of them would admit it, but the soft look on their faces made it very clear: they were both feeling a little bit sentimental. Fukase squeezed his hand as a thank-you.
That was more than enough for Akira. "Take your time getting ready, okay? Just let me know when you want to leave. I'll be with you as long as you want me to be."
This time, Fukase really did smile.